SEEKER OF TRUTH

                                                              ✧✧✧

                  What… What did that even mean? Was it a code for something? How was he supposed to judge based off that alone, without knowing their motive, the situation, why they were on the moon in the first pl-

ramadan and eid are over

@libergrimortis

   “Ah, Heinwa–ack!”   Oh, don’t mind him, he’s just tripped over book or foot either, and near tumbled a bookcase over trying to regain his balance. But ne’er fear, the ever graceful prince has made it through without disaster.   “How, uh, goes your reading?”

                                                              ✧✧✧

                  "Boring.”

                  Heinwald sighed, and all at once he threw himself backwards away from his previously hunched position into his seat so thoroughly that the wood of it groaned as though in sympathy to his situation. The hand that had been gripping his latest tome on the occult and the unnatural fell slack, and the book within it slid out of his grasp and dropped to the ground to settle alongside all the others he’d piled up around him.

@libergrimortis

    For as often the library appears in her dreams, one would think Lathna would be growing used to its presence, no matter how uncomfortable it made her. The truth, however, was the opposite–for every sleeping hour she spent here, the more she suspected (feared) that it wasn’t simply a dream, and the more uneasy it made her whenever she finally woke.

    She’s taken to wandering the shelves in these dreams–if that was what they were. Not touching anything, because she doesn’t dare disturb anything in this awful place, but wandering. Walking around the endless labyrinth of shelves until she wakes; counts the books to pass the hours. It distracts her from how unpleasant it feels to be here, at least.

    Four hundred and sixty-three, four hundred and sixty-four… She goes to turn a corner and nearly trips over herself in her haste to backpedal. A familiar face, and one who most certainly shouldn’t be present in a dream! What is Heinwald doing here? She darts back behind the shelf. Did he hear her? Did she make any noise? (She isn’t sure why she’s scared of encountering him here, but she is.) Holding her breath, Lathna peeks around the corner to check if he noticed, her bunny-eared bow poking out like a flag from behind the shelf as she does.

                                                              ✧✧✧

                  Something strange was afoot in the Library Obscura. Something strange was always afoot there --- the entire structure stank of the bizarre. Its walls seemed to stretch infinitely outwards from the inside, the bookcases and the shelves laden with tomes and other materials loomed impossibly high up toward a ceiling that almost seemed to be moving and shifting, and the air was dark and ominous. Space and time almost felt out of flux within it. Perhaps that explained how Heinwald immediately found himself standing in front of Lathna, bent at the hip with his eyes so close to hers by her second bend around the corner to peek up at him that he could feel her breath on the taut, dead skin of his face. He did not move ( not at first, anyway ), choosing instead to stare her down for a moment before slowly straightening himself back up. He could hear his spine popping and crackling with every movement. Maybe there really was such a thing as being bent over a desk for too long...

                  "... You shouldn’t be in here.”

                  Shouldn’t she? The Library and the Halidom were both far from Hethiwood, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enter of her own free will, did it? The detective glanced away, almost as if he were expecting further company before slowly moving his attention back down to the book gripped in his blackened right hand: an innocuous tome on plants and herbs to be found far to the north, near the Kingdom of Levin.

“Truth of…fiends?” What was there to investigate? They were there, and thus had to be disposed of. Unless he wanted to keep them from ever coming back…? Boy, wouldn’t that be useful. 

“Rawn take friend where friend want, try help investigate. Heart of forest hard for walk, though. Many tree hide fiend good, make for hard hunt. Rawn protect good, but danger still. Rawn not kill nest before- fiend protect good.”

Then again, the strange man practiced healing magic, didn’t he? Not like the others though- draped in white and those pretty gold symbols. As long as Heinwald could repair the results of missteps, everything would be fine. 

“Go now, yes? Need be fast before sun leave, fiend have night eye, Rawn not.”

                                                              ✧✧✧

                  The heart of the forest being difficult to navigate was to be expected. The foliage was thick, and the sunlight was tinged green and dimmed through layers and layers of leaves; it all provided ample space and cast plenty of shadows for fiends to hide behind. Heinwald’s grip on his staff tightened. When it came to deductive reasoning and being able to piece together solutions to mysteries his confidence and capabilities were second to none, but when it came to brute force even he had to admit that he was outmatched by most things... A pack of unseen fiends certainly included. Genius bound no muscle to his sinew, nor fortified his bones. It was what made Curran so useful.

                  Hopefully Rawn was just as strong.

BASICS.

FULL NAME.   Count Heinwald Von Zerfallen. PRONUNCIATION.  Considering Heinwald has a german accent in the game it’s probably supposed to be something like Pfalzgräfin/Herzog Heinwald Von Zerfallen, pronounced pretty much as it’s spelt. NICKNAME.   If you call him Heiny he’s coming for you. GENDER.   Male? He clearly responds to male pronouns. HEIGHT.   5′7 AGE.   ??? Late twenties ??? ZODIAC.   Scorpio. SPOKEN LANGUAGES.   English. German. Whatever South Grastaean and Alberian specific common languages there are. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.   Thin and spindly, not too tall. His hair is black and white and his skin is a literal patchwork of pale and purple. There are rounded metal dome things covering up where his ears ought to be. HAIR COLOR.   Black and white. EYE COLOR.   Bright red. SKIN TONE.   Pallor, not very healthy looking. BODY TYPE.   Bony. ACCENT.   German? Austrian? Swiss? DOMINANT HAND.   Right. POSTURE.   Usually leaning a bit to one side or the other. TATTOOS.   None. Is the stitching not enough. MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE.   The stitched up face, probably.

CHILDHOOD.

PLACE OF BIRTH.   The duchy of Zerfallen, Alberia, South Grastia. HOMETOWN.   The capitol of Zerfallen. MANNER OF BIRTH.   Who knows. FIRST WORDS.   Probably something like ‘wrong’. SIBLINGS.   Elder sister, deceased. PARENTS.   Sabine and Wolfgang Von Zerfallen. PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. His mother was very involved until she died of illness when he was young; it was what drove him to medicine. His father was a tyrant, and the circumstances of his death ( and Heinwald’s subsequent involvement in cracking the case of his murder ) was what led him to detective work.

ADULT LIFE.

OCCUPATION.   Heretic Elder god Itinerant paranormal investigator. CURRENT RESIDENCE. The Halidom. CLOSE FRIENDS.   Curran. RELATIONSHIP STATUS.   Single. He did bribe a young lady into getting engaged with him, but she ran for the hills as soon as he showed her his taxidermy collection. Actively attempting to convince someone to marry him solely to prove to Curran that he understands love ( he does not ). FINANCIAL STATUS.   Nobility/high class. DRIVER’S LICENSE.   No. CRIMINAL RECORD.   The church sent an inquisitor after him under suspected heresy. Does that count. VICES.   Pride.

SEX & ROMANCE.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION.   Nobody knows. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION.   Nobody knows. PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE.   submissive | dominant | switch | no preference | ??? PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE.   submissive | dominant | switch | no preference | ??? LIBIDO.   If it’s there he clearly has no trouble not showing it. TURN ONS.   Crimes! ... As in, they excite him. Not sexually. He just really loves having cases to crack. TURN OFFS.   Good luck finding something that’ll get under his skin. Not being into his weird taxidermy I guess. LOVE LANGUAGE.   Bribing people into marrying him counts doesn’t it. RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES.   He literally walked up to a lady went ‘hey I’m rich and my buddy thinks I don’t get love but I totally do so marry me to prove him wrong’ and that just about sums it up.

MISCELLANEOUS.

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG.  I first heard THIS song in the game when he was introduced in the AA event so I just associate it with him. HOBBIES TO PASS THE TIME.   Reading. Solving crimes. Harassing Curran. Doing taxidermy. MENTAL ILLNESSES / DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS.   He’s lowkey an elder god idk how to diagnose that folks. PHYSICAL ILLNESSES. Whatever is going on with his skin. LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED.   Left. FEARS.   Death, the unknown, failure, loneliness. SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL.   Like sky high. He regularly calls himself a genius. The fact that he’s almost always right when it comes to cracking cases does not help his inflated ego. VULNERABILITIES.   Self perception, others’ opinions.

       ‘ i —i don’t knoooow ! ‘

       if the creepy back-alley library had such in-depth guides on even dirt why didn’t it have any answers to these kinds of things ?  it wasn’t as if he had ever planted himself into the ground or woke up buried in anything but the dark of his tomb and settled dust . disposition fast turns apprehensive after scrambling outburst ,  ‘ i mean ,  i’ve been asking that myself since the beginning … !  if i knew i was going to wake up all by myself in the sort of place that only wanted to kill me with nothing to eat to pass the time ,  i would’ve stayed asleep !  uh -  probably . ‘

       calling a creature thoroughly ignored by reanimated bones and hideous ghouls alike ‘alive’ was quite the stretch too ,  even he had to admit -  and there was of course the mention of necromancy that fast catches curiosity .  ‘ is it that hard … ?  i haven’t really had a lot of trouble reviving stuff .  b-but ,  i guess i don’t really think about it …  and most people get this angry look even if you just mention it .  one time ,  someone’s cat got …  kinda …  you know ,  by a wagon -  ?  s-so i brought it back to life …  but then the townspeople people called me a monster and a fiend and chased me out !  like with stones and pans and arrows and stuff !  i don’t really wanna go anywhere alone anymore … ‘ 

                                                              ✧✧✧

                  "You may not know now, but surely that isn’t what you want, is it?? Why, I cannot think of a single situation where someone might not want to uncover the truth about this.”

                  Honestly, the fact that Ramses didn’t know the true nature of his own reanimation made the entire thing that much more interesting to the bespectacled detective pressing down on him like a stubborn leech. The unknown meant mystery, and, as he kept insisting, there was no mystery that Heinwald could not uncover. He paused only to nudge his glasses back up the bridge of his nose before suddenly seizing Ramses by the wrist and tugging on his arm, pulling to goad him into following him down the hall towards the front door of the halidom. If he could get him into the Library Obscura, they’d be surrounded by all manner of tomes and texts that could help them unearth more clues.

                  "We’re going to the library.”

                                           It did not sound like a suggestion.

Why Curran wanted to seal such a treasure trove of knowledge was beyond him. The faithful were so narrow minded, afraid, which was the only source of the malevolent power. They’d already taken care of the true danger of the library, so wh-

A voice, his own, caught his attention, spending him on a tight turn on his heel. 

For the first time in perhaps his entire life, Heinwald was struck speechless. 

Perhaps it was in anticipation of death, as crossing a some form shifting fiend with intelligence enough to speak and clairvoyance enough to assess his thoughts meant it was to replace him. The only way to do so was through slaying the original….or turning them into books, if little Lathna was any indicator. 

And yet he lived long enough for his mouth to hang ever so slightly open and stare long enough to gather his wits., “I suppose I am, though I can’t say I’ve passed any desk that looks as though it’s been in use. Back where, exactly?”

Did the library have a back. Did it end?

                                                              ✧✧✧

                  "Back there.”

                  The fingers on Heinwald’s blackened hand curled back as he lifted it up to soundlessly point out the direction he’d come from, his skin stretched taut over the stitching holding his knuckles together. Despite being a library the library obscura was forever dark, as though a black cloud permanently hung over the air like a cold, brooding miasma that stank faintly of decay and old books and dimmed everything through a fog. The haze made it difficult to make out the walls stretching out every which-way from the centre of the structure, but even through the mist of dark mana there was an unmistakable ( albeit faint ) glow emanating from what could only be the candle he’d left behind to read by. He shifted his weight, rocked it forward from his heels to the balls of his feet in anticipation of walking away, and the wooden floorboards heaved and groaned as though to voice their complaints.

                  Heinwald’s eyes never left his doppleganger’s.

He was awake. …Why was he awake?

Curran groaned, loud enough to drown out Heinwald’s complaints, and pushed the man roughly away before he could find some other method of harassment to employ. An inquisitor had to be well-rested to investigate as best he could, and he’d told Heinwald this, surely. Maybe he hadn’t been clear.

“…You’re a smart guy. Find one yourself,” he grumbled into his pillow, finally cobbling together enough consciousness to speak. “Or… gimme a few hours first…”

There was no way to tell what hour it was, aside from the incorrect one to be waking up at; if there was light filtering through the curtains, Curran didn’t see it. Which also begged the question of what Heinwald was doing up.

“…Hey,” Curran said, turning away from the sweet comfort of his pillow now so he could squint at Heinwald. “You know that this is a fine time to be asleep, right? It makes morning show up faster. And by that time I’d be awake enough to handle this.”

Actually, he couldn’t say that Heinwald’s clamorous entrance would be something he appreciated any time he was trying to sleep. He really needed to set some better boundaries.

                                                              ✧✧✧

                  If it weren’t for Curran’s desk catching him in the back ( and for its corner shoving up painfully against the small of his back in the process, ow ) Heinwald would have been thrown straight to the floor. Curran didn’t have to go and be so rough with him. Was it not his job to provide his partner with things to do and cases to solve? How could he sleep so soundly, knowing they were being wholly unproductive? As soon as the initial wince that came with Curran’s shove passed Heinwald was right back up in arms again, glowering down at the inquisitor as though parsing his options before wordlessly raising his cane and bringing it down on the bed.

                  Hopefully the blunt end of one of the nails sticking out of his crook would bang into his stomach and wake him up properly.

                  "How am I supposed to be expected to sleep if I haven’t done any work yet, exactly?? I’ve burnt no energy to need rest!! Instead I sit wasting my life away while you drag your feet on bringing me anything new.”

       to which the poor creature has no proper reply save for a high peep of surprise at the sudden grip .  nefaria was a far more blessed one when it came to appearances :  a body that was cold yet still beautiful wasn’t nearly as perceptible as one that was wrapped and rotting beneath ,  not to mention the fact the queen seemed content in her history and revitalized present .  ramses ,  meanwhile ,  knew nothing ,  not even the most obvious ,  and it’s with suitably bewildered expression that his head spins and he tries to collect every question spilling from the other’s mouth .

       ‘ how —  huh ? ‘  true ,  their dress was similar ,  wasn’t it ?  and having both been unearthed if not salvaged from the desert of death with their enigmatic ,  undead lives ,  perhaps there was a connection -  though he wasn’t sure of his own temperature and jumps to conclusions at the other’s final query ,  verbally grasping at it in his fluster .  ‘ no ,  sir !  i’ve never eaten any of the dirt !  i mean …  at least …  i don’t think so … ? ‘

                                                              ✧✧✧

                  "It doesn’t necessarily have to be ingested, you see. A handful of grimoires I’ve found within the bowels of the library obscura suggest that there are certain compounds that can bring life back to even long dead carcasses... Or ‘life’ in a certain sense. I of course figured it was a preposterous idea. Imbuing a corpse with enough energy to make it move was one thing, but outside of necromancy, reanimating the dead hardly sounds like something so simple... But here you stand before me.”

                  Ramses looked perplexed. Or flustered. Both? Was it solely Heinwald’s questioning that was getting him to squirm the way he was, or was it something else? He could only assume that his body couldn’t have been as well preserved as Nefaria’s if it were so thoroughly wrapped up --- if his muscles and sin had rotted away, was there brain damage as well, despite how readily he seemed to roam around the halidom?